BT Infinity User Guide

Why are BT Infinity speed quotes preceded by 'Up to'?

Each broadband line has its own personality. Speeds are affected by a variety of factors, including things like the time of day you connect, and how your equipment is set up.

So when we describe a broadband service it's easiest to quote the theoretical maximum speed the technology can provide - the so-called 'Up to' speeds. Before ordering, you can see an estimate of the maximum BT Infinity speed you can expect on your particular line at www.bt.com/infinity.

Hints on getting an accurate speed test result for BT Infinity

Remove the impact of any Wi-Fi issues by using a wired Ethernet connection between your computer and your Hub.

Close all applications on your computer before you start the speed test so that the computer processor can focus on the speed test.

Make sure other computers or devices connected to your Hub aren't accessing the Internet.

Turn off VPN connections to your company's network if you're using a work computer that has one set up. The VPN connection acts like a tunnel within your broadband pipe. The traffic has to flow to the end of the VPN tunnel before it can go out to the Internet. Because most corporate networks use traffic shaping to manage the data flowing through the tunnels, you won't get an accurate speed test result.

Don't run a test too often. Some speed testers limit the number of times you can run a test from the same line to make sure they can cope with demand. If you want to run multiple tests to see how different things impact on your speed, you may have to wait up to three hours before using the same speed test website.

Run the test at different times of day. At busy times (5pm to midnight) the throughput rate can momentarily drop as low as 2.4Mb/s. It's nothing to worry about if you get this result once, but there may be a problem with our network if you get a result this low again.

Why is a wired connection better than wireless for fibre?

To make the most of the higher speeds of fibre-based broadband we think it's best to use a wired connection to your computer. We'll set this up for you as part of the installation process.

Connecting your laptop or games console via Wi-Fi can be convenient and avoid trailing wires. But weak wireless connections may not be fast or reliable enough for certain bandwidth-intensive activities such as watching HD content, or sending or receiving large files.

A wired connection removes a speed bottleneck that you would get if you used wireless. With wireless, all of the devices connected wirelessly share the approximate equivalent of an Ethernet cable.

Rather than each device getting to use the full speed available when it sends data to the Hub, it has to share the space with data being sent from all the other wireless devices. However, if you connect a computer to your Hub using an Ethernet cable, that computer can send and receive up to the full speed of your fibre-based broadband line.

What is the Smart Wireless feature in my Hub?

Your Hub has a smart wireless feature which ensures you maintain a good connection to all your wireless devices.

When the Hub is first turned on it monitors all the available wireless channels and then chooses channel 1, 6 or 11 depending on which has the least congestion and interference. This way, you automatically get the channel with the best reception.

The Hub keeps on monitoring the channel it's chosen, and if interference increases to such an extent that it is likely to cause a problem, it will automatically switch to a better channel.

It does this automatic channel selection up to three times every 24 hours. But if you feel you're not getting the best wireless performance from your Hub, you can force it to do a refresh - scanning the channels again and choosing the best one.

Here's how:

Enter http://bthomehub.home in your web browser

If this is the first time you have visited the Hub Manager you'll be asked to change the password.

Click on Settings and enter your password if required.

Click on Wireless.

In the Wireless Channel section click on Refresh.

The Hub will check the wireless channels and after about a minute will have chosen the best one.

We think you're a lot better off using Refresh than selecting an individual wireless channel yourself. Manually selecting a channel will turn off Smart Wireless and if the channel you've chosen then experiences any interference, you may end up with poor wireless performance yet again.